happy day

I'm very happy to post the news that "Edge of Winter" received Best of Show at the Northwest Pastel Society 2012 Members Exhibit at Columbia Art Center Gallery, Hood River, Oregon. The show runs through October 28th and was juried and judged by Dawn Emerson. This painting has a special place in my heart because the reference photo is from a dog-walk early this year with my two grandsons. A happy day then and now.

spellbound

This painting is on blue Canson Mi-Teintes paper.  I prefer the "soft" side because I don't want the pattern of the paper to be a part of my painting. Canson Mi-Teintes holds much LESS pastel than my favorite sanded surface, Wallis. There is not much room for playing around with colors and shapes because the tooth of the paper is full before you know it and won't hold any additional color. When I taught workshops, this is the paper I started my students on and using it again was a good exercise for me because I was forced to work slowly and more thoughtfully.

june

This painting began as part of the five-artist demo at the American Art Company Gallery. I have been looking at it on my studio easel for a week. There was a one square inch area that bothered me (unfortunately, I don't have a photo of how it looked) so last night I began to paint on it again. The longer I worked on it, the more I felt the life of it slip away. I don't know how else to describe the feeling...it wasn't alive to me any longer - it was just a surface of unrelated marks and color so I washed it off and began again.

I wouldn't say I brought the original painting back to life, I would say a new painting, with a new message, was born.

This morning I ran across an explanation of painting on fb that rings true for me from artist Dan McCaw:

'I think about painting like sculpting, you add, you take away until you feel some connection, something that feels right, something that helps tie one thing to another and starts to hold your interest, something that surprises and makes you engage.'

pswc demo

I'm back from my Leap-of-Faith Abstracting Demo for the Pastel Society of the West Coast at the Haggin Museum in Stockton, CA. If you are anywhere in the area, I encourage you to see the show - every piece is worthy of an award, I'm honored to have been included in the show and to have received the Atlantic Papers Award.

32 to go

I really love thumbnail number 4 but just as one can rely too heavily on a reference photo, getting determined to duplicate a thumbnail can be a problem too. I finally just put the thumbnail out of sight and let the painting go in another direction. "Hometown Memory," 13 x 13 inches, on raspberry ground.

Speaking of memory: artist Loriann Signori has been posting insights about memory painting for many weeks. If you want to go deeply into this subject, visit her blog.

I thought you might like to see the thumbnail I referred to. I may use it again for a painting on a different color ground.

33 to go

This painting started out based on the third thumbnail from left, top row, on the sheet of 35 but it stayed on my easel in the oil-wash foundation stage for days because the composition made me wince each time I looked at it. When I went back to work on this piece, I thought about how much my hometown has changed since I lived there and what it is that still binds me to the area. One fondness is the sound of the train whistle of my childhood that I heard again as I was shooting the reference photos for this series. I kept that sound in my mind as I painted this one, "Hometown Heartstrings," 14 x 14 inches, pastel on paper.

34 to go

One down, 34 hometown marshland thumbnails to go....oh, maybe not really that many but enough for a series of paintings from this photo shoot.  How many is a "series?" Maybe it is however many it takes to get bored with the subject. "Hometown Marshland," 13 x 13 inches, pastel on paper.

books need new homes

I'm cleaning out bookshelves and have 36 art books from my private collection that need new homes. A variety of mediums, all in very good condition. I set up a little store on Amazon under my business name, Bina Designs (since 1988). To see my books for sale, CLICK HERE.

added color

It poured down rain all day today as I painted in my studio. Maybe that's why this scene is more colorful than the subdued hues I talked about in my last post - the one with the reference photo.  Overall, I think it is improved but it isn't as loose as the plein air version and loose is good. If you want to see the workshop version, scroll down to August 3.

reading and reviewing

I'm reading Trust the Process: An Artist's Guide to Letting Go by Shaun McNiff. So many of Mr. McNiff's words ring true with me that I sent him an email asking permission to quote from the book and he agreed. So, you'll be hearing bits and pieces of it on this blog as I work my way through. "Emanation is a process of one thing emerging from another, and this quality of creation reinforces the importance of working in a series." Last spring I painted a series of four 5 x 7 scenes of sand dunes. Then, a series of four landscapes, then recently, four more. Here they are, all together. Click on the image to enlarge.

suddenly summer

When I began working in pastel years ago, I used Canson Mi-Teintes paper instead of the sanded surfaces I use now. This week, out of curiosity, I tried Canson again. I found I couldn't get the subtleties of layered color that happens with sanded paper. Because of this, I didn't enjoy the painting process as much but in the end, Canson gave me a bold, saturated application of color that looks more like paint. This is our front yard, looking West.

6 x 6 inch rework

It was a joy to rework the 2008 oil painting shown at bottom left. Current work builds on previous work and imagery, strokes, and color choices become more sophisticated with experience. Two years later, "Treeline" is the improved version. 6 x 6 inches, oil on masonite.

abstract one

I'm playing with oil paint this week. Abstracts seem like a good way to become reacquainted with oil but for me they are much more brain-draining to create than landscapes! The balancing act is intuitive in landscapes but with an abstract there is a constant narrative as I'm working (which is exhausting). But, the medium is a fun change. Click on the image to enlarge.

IAPS Sixteenth Juried Exhibition

I am honored to have my painting, "Tuesday's Child" included in the International Association of Pastel Societies Sixteenth Juried Exhibition at the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio. To see images of the 36 pieces in the show, CLICK HERE.

a saturday spray

A warm Saturday morning and a good day to wash off another old pastel painting so I can begin again on the same Wallis paper. This one is 19 x 25 inches. In this photo, I'm blasting it with water from the garden hose and because it is a sunny day, I'll leave it here to drip dry.